Unclear Industry Wants Multiple Auctions at Once, Stockdale Says; 5G Auction Starts
The FCC has rarely held multiple spectrum auctions at once, but it’s not clear what industry wants the agency to do, Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale said at an FCBA lunch Wednesday. Meanwhile, the FCC started its first millimeter-wave auction, with bids coming in at just under $41.7 million after two rounds. It reported provisionally winning bids on 2,065 of the 3,072 28 GHz licenses for sale in the auction. The FCC plans three rounds Thursday, starting at 10 a.m.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Stockdale questioned whether industry wants to have to deal with more than one major auction at once. “There aren’t enough experts,” he said. Staff is typically preparing for multiple auctions at any given time, all in different states of preparation, Stockdale said. He said he recently asked one staffer how many auctions she was working on. “That day, she worked on six different auctions,” he said: “We really are constantly trying to serve you.”
Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said it's high time the FCC got started on 5G auctions. “Today, we finally get out of the starting gate,” she said. “We follow the lead of South Korea, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Australia. But we put ourselves back in the running for next-generation wireless leadership.” Rosenworcel still wants an auction calendar and a “pipeline” of both millimeter-wave and mid-band spectrum.
“We’re not stopping there,” said Chairman Ajit Pai. “Between the auctions this year and next, the FCC will push almost 5 gigahertz of spectrum into the commercial marketplace.”
“5G is about our economic leadership for the next decade and, with today’s auction, the FCC takes another solid step forward in winning the global race to 5G,” said Commissioner Brendan Carr.
Sharing remains important and the FCC hopes to learn lessons from the dynamic sharing in the 3.5 GHz band, Stockdale said. “We want to see how this works, what we can learn,” he said. “You have to look at each spectrum band on its own.”
The commission is the most innovative telecom regulator, Stockdale said. “It was the first regulator to challenge the assumption that telecommunications was a monopoly and it introduced competition,” he said. “It was the first to adopt strong economic analysis refining regulation, including price cap regulation.” The FCC held the first spectrum auction and more recently the first incentive auction, he said.
The new Office of Economics and Analytics will mean “more prominence for economics in the decision-making at the FCC” and that economists will have a role in all rulemaking proceedings, Stockdale said. OEA hasn't formally launched, but the Wireless Bureau is coordinating with some of the economists who will work there, he said. “I expect I will be working with … most of the same economists that I’ve been working with already.” Stockdale is a lawyer and an economist.
Stockdale counseled FCBA members that when they lobby the FCC, get to the point. He recalled one visit where an executive spent 27 minutes of a 30-minute meeting “talking about his company before he even gets to an ask, at which point there is absolutely no time to explore the merits,” he said. The FCC values its meetings with industry, Stockdale said. “We’re constantly trying to keep on top of what’s happening in technology, in the market, among companies, so that we can make informed decisions.”